#basedworld

Lil B’s new mixtape Loyalty Casket is a gargantuan epic at three hours and 38 minutes long. He calls it a mixtape, but it’s really closer to a vintage radio drama rehashing the New Testament. If it sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is.

Instead of the Christ on the cross plot here we actually have no plot, but the difficult knot has all the Biblical mysteries. Some of the songs are narrated by Lil B (the Son), some by Based God (the Father) and some by their Unity (the Holy Spirit). Lil B is an apostle upon himself, a true weirdo revelation. With Biblical underlying motif, Loyalty Casket doesn’t come down to some po-mo rap mumbo-jumbo. Lil B resists the easy lure to write a gangsta Bible. For many a hip hop tourist it may seem like a straight game: the usual attributes of rap are all present here, from street gangs to freaky sex. Yet the frequent hip hop listener will understand that this is all pastiche. But pastiches now are all around us. It only works when it’s pushed to its extremes, the supreme form of pastiche. It doesn’t shout a weary cry “Look how hollow mass culture is!” It is way more critical: “Look, mass culture is hollow! So am I!”